Shannon McClennan Co-Chairperson of the Board The People’s Poetry Festival
To Whom It May Concern:
The People’s Poetry Festival wishes to nominate Wakefield Brewster (aka, The Lyrical Pitbull) for Calgary’s Poet Laureate.
For the past six years, Wakefield Brewster has been an active, vocal and engaging participant in Calgary’s local arts community, and has represented his adopted city on both the national and international stage. Writing and performing poetry for more than 20 years, and featured on CBC’s Hot Type with Jian Gomeshi and a variety of print, radio and television media in Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto, Wakefield has deservedly become one of Calgary’s most eminent and applauded lyricists. The founder of b.funkee productionz, a performance and production company specializing in spoken word performance and multidisciplinary/cabaret performance, and includes the Pitbull Poetree Reading Seriez, The Pitbull Poetree Slam Seriez and Poet in Residence Sessions, he uses his love for poetry and the spoken word to reach a diverse audience in Calgary and beyond.
Following his move to Calgary in 2006, Wakefield captained Calgary’s SLAM Team at the 2006, 2008 and 2009 National Spoken Word Festival and, in 2009, Wakefield performed as part of WorldSkills International 2009. As an active supporter of Calgary’s arts and culture initiatives, Wakefield has given multiple performances on CJSW 90.9FM, The Single Onion Poetry Reading Series and The International Spoken Word Festival, among others. An advocate for supporting written and spoken arts, Wakefield performs for elementary and middle school students throughout Calgary, Olds, Lethbridge, Fort MacLeod, Okotoks and Kathryn. In addition, Wakefield can frequently be found performing and encouraging as part of The Mustard Seed’s monthly Community Nights and as part of Calgary’s First Thursday Art Walks.
Over the past six years, Wakefield has been featured in a number of diverse, local events – including The Happiest Hour of All, Thought Express and the Art Gallery of Calgary’s Lifestyles urban Culture Festival Pre-Launch Gala – and media, including Swerve Magazine, FFWD Weekly, Calgary’s Shaw Cable Community Channel, The Calgary Herald, The New West and Book Television. Beginning in 2010, The City of Calgary has called on Wakefield to share his art with the city, including the building launch and celebration of the new Arts and Culture Head Office in Calgary. In 2010 and 2011, Wakefield performed as part of Calgary’s Canada Celebration at Prince’s Island Park, as well as local celebrations of Black History Month and other heritage and culture events.
In August, 2011, The People’s Poetry Festival named Wakefield Brewster People’s Poet of Honor for our inaugural year. Wakefield’s dedication, compassion, motivation, passion and undeniable talent made him our first and only choice to celebrate local, street-level poetry in Calgary. During the three-day festival, Wakefield gave multiple command performances to captive audiences and inspired passersby from our Open Mic in Kensington. Wakefield firmly considers himself a Calgarian and is proud and honored to support the arts and culture in the city he calls home. We believe that Wakefield Brewster is truly the people’s poet – a self-taught, gifted lyricist and dynamic performer who engages audiences with his works on social change, equality, education and perseverance who happily shares the gift of his talent with the city and the world as a proud Calgarian.
We believe that these qualities, paired with his lifetime of achievement and dedication to the spoken and written arts, make Wakefield Brewster the ideal candidate for Calgary’s first Poet Laureate.
Sincerely,
Shannon McClennan
Co-Chairperson of the Board
The People’s Poetry Festival